Teaching American History

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Teaching American History provides various free resources for American history and government teachers, including our popular seminars , multi-day seminars , and extensive database of original source documents. Still, to paraphrase a famous campaign slogan from the 1990s, for TAH, it’s the documents, stupid!

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American History Primary Sources History Government 52

The Hechinger Report

AUGUST 13, 2024

Patty Topliffe, who teaches social studies at Woodstock High School in Vermont, said teaching vocabulary and other literacy skills to her students helps them understand primary source documents. Credit: Image provided by Patty Topliffe Poor reading skills are a nationwide issue.

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High School Teaching Primary Sources K-12 145

Thrive in Grade Five

APRIL 20, 2019

The Beginnings of Hysteria So, how did this terrifying time in history begin? Court documents do not explain the charges against him, but in a document dated prior to the accusation, Thomas Gage said that Dr. Toothaker saw two children who were ill and exhibiting “unwanted fits.” Their local doctor was no help.

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Teaching Primary Sources History Social Studies 130

Teaching American History

AUGUST 6, 2024

Staff and faculty members at Teaching American History have heard from our teacher partners that they want nonpartisan election resources that elevate classroom discourse beyond political bickering and horse race coverage. This concise history is perhaps the best account we have of the election of 1800.

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Primary Sources American History Professional Development History 72

Students of History

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

If you're a US History teacher looking for PDF worksheets for your high school or middle school classroom, I have tons to share, including this 30+ page packet of free engaging assignments you can download and start using right away. Each US History unit also include thorough 9-page worksheets packets for every unit in the curriculum.

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History Primary Sources Lesson Plan American History 52

Rosie the History Teacher

NOVEMBER 3, 2019

As a history teacher with a background in museum work, my biggest goal is for my students to learn to curate their knowledge to be able to share it with others. This involves so many of those important historical thinking skills : making connections, periodization, analyzing sources, and crafting arguments. It is free!)

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History Primary Sources Museum Artifacts 52

Doing Social Studies

OCTOBER 22, 2021

Nathan McAlister is the Humanities Program Manager – History, Government, and Social Studies with the Kansas State Department of Education. In 2010, Nathan was named Kansas and National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. My goal, for this blog post is twofold.

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Primary Sources Archiving Library American History 67

Moler's Musing

OCTOBER 4, 2024

Simplifying Primary Sources with AI My goal was to simplify the lesson while still helping students build confidence and learn. The revised documents were a mix of Jamestown and Plymouth hardships and survival stories. They worked in pairs, reading the sources and answering questions.

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Primary Sources Geography History Lesson Plan 96

Moler's Musing

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

It’s been a huge time saver, especially since it allowed me to focus more on the classroom and less on the stress of documenting every detail. This part helped students connect primary source analysis to the broader motivations for European exploration, further deepening their historical thinking skills.

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Primary Sources Artifacts Geography Lesson Plan 88

Dangerously Irrelevant

MAY 31, 2017

It also offers a YouTube channel on which historians discuss their work , making history come alive for contemporary youth. The UC Davis California History Social Science Project frames current events within their historical context , connecting students’ present to the past. Washington University in St. government as well.

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Social Studies Teaching Archiving Geography 76

ASHP CML

DECEMBER 17, 2024

The ASHP staff knows that such changes dont emerge overnight; as we look backward and ahead, we remain committed to making our work as history educators help generate greater understanding of the current historical moment. This week, researcher Carli Snyder shares a primary source.

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Primary Sources History History Education Research 40

Teaching American History

JUNE 18, 2024

And that means the pinnacle of TAH’s professional development for teachers has arrived as well: our Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program at Ashland University in Ashland, OH. The four questions cover a variety of topics, eras, or themes in American history and government. For what purpose was it written?

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American History Primary Sources Government History 52

Teaching American History

OCTOBER 15, 2024

In the next few days, those who have completed all coursework for the Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program may begin writing their qualifying exams, so as to graduate with their degrees this December. Online coursework during the school year entailed many afterwork hours reading the assigned primary documents.

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American History Primary Sources Government History 52

ASHP CML

DECEMBER 15, 2023

In July 2022, ASHP/CML hosted the first LGBTQ+ Histories of the United States summer institute for k-12 teachers. Three educators describe specific materials and topics that were presented during the 2022 Summer Institute, LGBTQ+ Histories of the United States, which they have incorporated into their own teaching.

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Primary Sources K-12 History Professional Development 52

The Hechinger Report

APRIL 18, 2017

Tim Matthews, a middle school history teacher outside Boston, uses iCivics games to teach the Constitution, which his class calls “the rulebook.” Last fall, the folks at iCivics anticipated a 20 to 30 percent bump in game plays, in line with what happened in the election year of 2012. Many of these issues have been around for decades.

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Civics K-12 Education Primary Sources 91

ACRE

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

In the classroom, educators can explore a variety of Constitutional resources with learners by reading primary sources, reviewing changes to the Constitution throughout American History, and analyzing historical arguments relating to the founding of the United States and the Constitution today. Since its ratification, the U.S.

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Primary Sources Civics Archiving Government 52

4QM Teaching

APRIL 30, 2023

That rubric defined “rigor” as student engagement with primary source texts and artifacts. Question Two) — is most appropriately addressed by interpreting primary sources. THE ERROR BEHIND “DOCUMENT ANALYSIS” The fact is, even people who should really know better often make the same mistake. Plan it out.

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Primary Sources Artifacts Archiving Social Studies 40

Teaching American History

NOVEMBER 20, 2023

One-Day seminars are the easiest way to engage with Teaching American History in person. For a few hours, teachers can dive into the content of primary source documents through a discussion with colleagues facilitated by a scholar. The post Preparing for a One Day Seminar appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Primary Sources American History Social Studies History 52

Teaching American History

JANUARY 16, 2024

Edited by Jeremy Bailey and intended as a secondary and post-secondary document reader, American Presidency contains 39 introduced and edited primary sources, discussion questions, and a thematic table of contents. The post Resources for Teaching the Presidential Election appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Teaching Primary Sources American History History 52

Students of History

AUGUST 12, 2021

These activities include: Sourcing documents Drag & drop timelines Analyzing primary and secondary sources Interpreting and inserting images Notetaking Comparing and contrasting topics 4. Refreshed Themes - each digital notebook set now has its own theme to match the unit.

Social Studies 52

Social Studies Primary Sources World History Civics 52

Doing Social Studies

APRIL 13, 2020

This week’s post comes from Thomas Fulbright, current KCSS president and history teacher at Hope Street Academy, a public charter school in Topeka since 2008. Thomas intends “to spend my entire life convincing them how exciting and important history is.” His bio picture is daughter Claire and Thomas meeting President Lincoln.

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Lesson Plan Charter School History Library 67

Students of History

JANUARY 3, 2023

For US History, that can be reading (or even listening to) this short article on the stock market crash of 1929 and then organizing the important parts of the article into their interactive notebook: This allows students to be hands on with their learning and easily combine a digital resource with a paper/pencil activity.

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Social Studies Historic Sites Teaching Primary Sources 52

Teaching American History

JULY 9, 2024

Sean Brennan Brennan, a frequent participant in Teaching American History seminars , has long promoted civic education and civil cooperation at the local and state level. As a teacher, he appreciated Teaching American History’s free seminars featuring scholar-led discussion of primary documents.

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American History Civics History Government 52

Teaching American History

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

He did, and Livingston soon found herself sitting in an introductory college course in US history. The next semester, she took two more US history classes, then realized she’d found her major. The next school year, she was asked to teach not only the regular-level geography course but also AP Human Geography and World History.

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Teaching Geography Ancestry Primary Sources 52

ED Surge

JULY 7, 2022

So when one student says she plans to study the Bermuda Triangle, the professor recommends that she ask a librarian—maybe the one who talked to the class earlier in the semester—to help her curate a reading list of secondary sources. As for primary sources, the professor suggests looking for a map, or a ship’s record, or a diary entry.

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Library Psychology Primary Sources Humanities 112

4QM Teaching

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

This is indeed a worthy goal: we want history and social studies classrooms to be active places where students are doing the intellectual work of our discipline, and often that work is best done in conversation with peers or with a teacher or both. In the earlier grades we are often looking at a pattern of behavior or an artifact.

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Artifacts Primary Sources Social Studies Professional Development 40

Teaching American History

APRIL 16, 2024

Primary documents give us unexpected perspectives on history. Landen Schmeichel sees this often when using documents in his Advanced Placement US History course at Legacy High School in Bismarck, North Dakota. Liberty and Equality: Ideas That Shaped America Primary documents prompt reflection on powerful ideas.

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Primary Sources American History History Government 98

Zinn Education Project

DECEMBER 2, 2024

The right is doing all they can to suppress the teaching of history, but they are not succeeding. In the follow-up lesson, students explore primary sources that reveal key outcomes of the Reconstruction era. How do we know? Read the list and donate so that we can provide more teachers with these lessons in 2025. government.

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Primary Sources Government History Humanities 97

The Hechinger Report

OCTOBER 1, 2017

Students first learn about Mississippi history in fourth grade, and that’s the first time they are supposed to delve deeply into the history of the movement to end racial segregation and discrimination. The Civil Rights Movement is a case history of what it means to be American, and what it means to exercise constitutional rights.”.

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K-12 Social Studies History Archiving 99

Zinn Education Project

JUNE 14, 2024

The right is doing all they can to suppress the teaching of history, but they are not succeeding. Mexico War: “We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God” Lesson by Bill Bigelow and student reading by Howard Zinn This interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.S.-Mexico How do we know?

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Primary Sources Government History Humanities 66

The Hechinger Report

AUGUST 7, 2023

In Norfolk, Virginia, the juniors and seniors enrolled in an African American history class taught by Ed Allison were working on their capstone projects, using nearby Fort Monroe, the site where the first enslaved Africans landed in 1619, as a jumping off point to explore their family history.

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History American History Teaching K-12 98

Anthropology News

JUNE 27, 2024

Inspired by Ian Mortimer’s English history Time Traveller’s Guide series and David Mountain’s podcast The Backpacker’s Guide to Prehistory , I also drew on Nanjala Nyabola’s critiques of travel guides’ Othering and colonial outlooks, which shaped class discussions on ethics, identity, and tone in writing.

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Anthropology Archaeology Pedagogy Archiving 105

Teaching American History

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

A Conversation with Sonja Czarnecki Sonja Czarnecki, 2022 MAHG Graduate “In order to understand history, you have to do history,” Sonja Czarnecki insists. Lomax hoped the young men would bring back audio documents for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. I felt like I’d won my own History Day contest!”

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Social Studies Research Archiving American History 98

Zinn Education Project

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

History students. The next day, we dove into the document analysis activity compiled by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. After going over key terms and background information (as suggested by Wolfe-Rocca in the PDF version of the activity), I arranged my students in groups of four and they investigated six of the included documents.

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History Teaching Social Studies Middle School 52

The Hechinger Report

JANUARY 14, 2018

In August, Michigan history teacher James Gorman watched televised images of torch-bearing white supremacists marching on the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and decided to use the incident to teach his students about similar events that happened in a divided United States 150 years ago. history when black lives mattered.”.

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Teaching Primary Sources History K-12 107

Moler's Musing

NOVEMBER 2, 2024

I had used AI to simplify the primary sources into 7th-grade-friendly readings, hoping this would keep students engaged and make the sources more accessible. This made the Loyalist primary source lesson from the Digital Inquiry group a perfect choice.

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Primary Sources Government History Human Rights 83

ASHP CML

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

The CUNY Digital History Archive is now recruiting volunteer researchers to join our project team. Research and Editorial Board The editorial team reviews new collections and assists with research and writing, identifies relevant archival materials and works with collection curators to contextualize primary sources.

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Archiving History Oral History Primary Sources 40